story © 1999 Ria-angelo
December 24th, 2001
5:14pm
Christmas Eve. No work today. I should be on a bus going to relatives, or doing last-minute shopping, or snuggled up on my couch in a blanket with tea and friends in front of "It's A Wonderful Life".
I'm not.
I'm wearing black, fitted-ankle running pants over my DPW long-underwear. I left the flourescent Gore-tex parka at home, and wear a black sweatshirt instead with the big white "USA" sewn on its front ripped out. Instead of boots I have my quietest pair of running shoes, covered in black permanent marker. I have black gloves. My hair's in a tight ponytail at the nape of my neck, tucked into the broad, fitted circle of black flannel that covers my nose, mouth, neck, ears.
I don't know if I should laugh at myself or be scared.
I feel like a kid behind a couch, waiting for Santa to arrive. God knows I passed enough excited kids and guys in Santa suits on the way down here. It made me wonder why I stopped believing in Santa Claus but I almost believe I'll see something in Chinatown tonight.
If you believe hard enough in something, you can make it happen.
That's what's said in fairy tales. And physics classes. And psychology journals.
I'm hidden well. Hidden with plenty of time to think, and wonder how long it would take Foot ninja to find me if they really are real and gathering in this place tonight. What will I do, me and the black-taped broomstick bo my hand keeps wrapping around, if they do arrive? Try to fight? Very funny, Meg. Run to warn Leo? They'd catch me at my first movement.
Wait til the fight's over, tail them to April's? And then to the farmhouse?
What do you expect - a 'welcome home' party?
I don't know. I only know I won't see anything at this site tonight. Nobody. No Turtles. No Foot. Maybe a watchman or two from the little shed at the other end.
I only know I have to be here to make sure...
7:48pm
It's gotten colder. My feet are numb, number than they've ever been on my rooftop, and I'm sure I'm insane.
What the heck do I think I'm doing out here?
The construction site's been dead quiet, and the plywood planks I'm sitting on, whose makeshift walls surround me two stories above street level, are as dark and chilly as the tunnel we worked in last night. Even the lights of Chinatown reflecting from the low orange clouds don't brighten this makeshift room. I'm freezing myself on Christmas Eve, alone in the dark, high in the air, on a goose chase for dreams.
I vow never to tell anyone about this night. I go back to thinking about the Christmas story I want to finish, the one I told the crew last night.
Lori's invited me to Christmas dinner with her family. "Silk, if you got no plans you're welcome to be my family's storyteller this year. Keep the kids happy. Gramps died and it's not the same since, but you've got his gift. I'm making dumplings."
"Thanks, Lori. I'd love to."
I hope I don't have a cold.
10:36pm
I've decided to wait it out til midnight. I'm sure the Turtles were on the road to Northampton by this time according to the comic book. I wonder if I'll be insane like this again, come Christmas of 2002. Will I wait for them again?
No...construction site'll be complete by then.
I'll wait it out in the cold for the rest of the evening though, as penance for being so dumb, motionless just in case I alert the watchman (or the Foot). And a midnight walk home at Christmas might be kinda neat in its own way - so long as I'm careful to stay to the lighted, busy traffic sections.
At that thought, I consider spending all night.
Wouldn't want to run into trouble, like with that gang down there.
It takes me a minute to realize another one's coming too - or two halves of the same one, closing from either end of the street that I can see from my perch. Closing towards the fence.
Someone yells.
I can't see over the fence, but someone's behind it. Trapped between the two wings of the gang.
I get tenser than I've ever been in my life, hoping it's Leo, hoping even more that it's not, and start rubbing sensation back into my feet. I have to get down there.
Most of the gang closes and I can't see anything. I leave the plywood hide-out, any noise I make covered by harsh thudding sounds I know only from movies and nightmares.
I have a broomstick bo. Will it be enough to help? I reach the frozen mud of the ground and hear a cracking up the steep slope.
The fence just got broken through.
This is a dream.
The guy that cartwheels down to ground level is followed by a flood of a dozen big Asian kids with sticks and I am in so far over my head there is nowhere I can turn.
I realize the guy isn't Leo.
This is a nightmare.
He's black, as out of his territory here as I am, and he sees me at the foot of the planks and framework, outlined dimly by the orange reflecting snow. He's horrified, and then grim as he faces me with the gang at his back, and a silence falls as the rest see me, too. I don't speak. I have a girl's voice. They'll kill me if they guess.
They'll kill me if I run.
They'll kill this guy if I don't do something.
Heck's becks, we all die sometime anyway.
I raise the black broomstick and point to the bloody guy on his knees in the dirt. I jerk it, signal him to come.
"Who the hell is this mother?"
I'm tall. The shirt is bulky. They might not guess I'm a crazy chick from uptown who's stuck herself smack in the middle of her own rattlebrained lunacy. I don't have time to wonder what a Turtle would do. I don't even have time to go through the grocery list and figure out which one is the best for this job. It's just me and fate now.
The black guy stands and gets his fists up, waiting. He wants me to attack. I must look like the head of the gang to him or something. Shredder. I shake my head and point behind me, like I'm some impatient vigilante. He blinks.
"Screw this, trash 'em both!!"
There's a rush. So much for the bluff.
The black guy bolts past me and I get five steps after him before the neck of my sweatshirt jerks back and chokes off my breath.
it's happened it's finally happened my luck's run out and I'm dead they're gonna destroy me and there's no one here to help oh where's a hero when you really need one ---
I jerk the bo back and it must be a lucky shot cause I can breathe again. I dodge an arm coming for me and turn too much, go to my knees. Dammit, Meg, twist an ankle like the bimbos in all the movies why don'tcha? Before I can stagger back up there's a boot in my side. It makes me gasp but I don't scream. I use it to get me on my feet.
I'm surrounded now... Five of them? Seven? The rest are still after the black guy, I can hear them yelling. I can smell these guys' breath and my sweat. Their faces are dark in the shadows, thick, unforgiving. One of the gang, he's wearing a Yankees cap, rips the broomstick out of my hand. It clatters against the nearest beam. There's laughter.
I hope it's over quick.
The floodlights and gunshots catch us by surprise. I grab the bo as we scatter, in case I get caught again. I run into the site, hearing the gang struggle up the muddy slope. An overweight guard is shouting, he has the black kid and four of the locals at gunpoint before me, one's on the ground cursing and bleeding. They haven't seen me yet...
I use the shadows.
Get to the street opposite the gang's.
Find a fire escape.
11pm
I'm on a rooftop in Chinatown on Christmas Eve a year and a half after college graduation. I'm a DPW worker...a writer...a crazy comic book fan... And I'm alive. My feet are still numb and I figure I'm an idiot for not calling a cab and going home right this instant, but I can't go back yet.
I just look at the orange sky, waiting to feel something besides sorrow.
"Leo... You were supposed to be there."
I think about the lucky shot I got in with my excuse for a ninja weapon. I think about the timing of that security guard and how by all rights I should have been caught by cops hours ago for messing around at a fenced-off construction site.
It would have been pretty hard to explain my outfit...not to mention why I was there...
Waiting for Santa Claus? No, officer. Waiting for Leonardo. He was here a few years ago, you see. No, not da Vinci. No, I wasn't playing vigilante. Those kids just happened to show up while I was waiting. I'm wearing black and carrying a weapon so I could avoid a gang, not fight them.
Do I look like a vigilante to you?
I flash a fake, big-eyed, innocent smile to the sky.
I'm still waiting for Leo's answer. It's in my head or my heart already but I don't want to listen to it yet.
Somewhere in the distance churchbells are ringing. Midnight? Is it Christmas yet? I've been watching the stars, seen a few satellites, wondering if any kids out there are being told 'That's Rudolph's nose!' I want to call Dave or some other friend or my Mom and say "Merry Christmas! I'm alive!"
There've been no fire trucks speeding to a blaze at a second-hand shop. No weird-looking guy wearing a canvas cloak, pursued by ninjas across the rooftops. At least, not that I've seen. I get to imagining the four of them sitting with me on the roof, waiting like I am, and I decide to indulge myself one last time.
"I thought maybe, if I was in the right place at the right time, and wanted it bad enough..."
That we'd be there?
"Yeah, Don. But it got screwed up. I could have gotten killed."
You didn't. That's the one rule on the street, Meg. Learned it yet?
"Don't get killed... Raph, there's more to life than that. Why can't everything be like it is in the comics? A family that's always together, that works and lives and loves together and will fight to the death for each other. Enemies you can actually name. Adventures."
You're a writer, Meg, says Mike. I picture him leaning the bottom of his shell against a steam chimney's round cover, his legs stuck out together with the heels dug into the snow of the roof. Writers make the adventures, give their readers enemies, make up ideals for people to live for. But writers gotta live in the really real world too.
"I try. I try for that balance. Every day. If I just try long enough - "
Then you'll create your own dreams. And live them out in the world you were born to. You don't need us to define that for you, that's making us a crutch.
Don takes over for Leo from there. You've got gifts. You've got lives to touch with those gifts. Let us be a springboard, not a dragchain.
I nod. I think about how hard it was to leave for college after high school graduation, hours away from my hometown, how hard it was to make new friends and get a start on my own life and yet still hold on to the friends and family of my past. It's gonna be just as hard to find that balance with my fanhood and my real-world life. But...maybe just as rewarding a challenge?
I look out over the snows of the empty roof and wonder if the black kid made it home okay.
Hey... If I hadn't been up there waiting for Leonardo... That kid might be dead, or in a hospital right now.
That sure doesn't mean I'm going to go out every night looking for Turtles in order to find people to rescue - that's a job for the pros - but suddenly I feel just a little bit more like the ninja hero I've always wanted to be.
December 25th, 2001
6:37am
Dawn.
Hell of a Christmas morning, I think, shaking the snow from my shoulders before going into the lobby of my building.
I flip through my mail in the elevator, still smelling the cold air of the street in my hair, on my clothes. There's a big red card from Mom, reminding me of the years of Christmases past, my family, presents that meant so much. Better get in before Mom calls and gets worried. Then maybe I can get some real sleep before dinner at Lori's.
It's with happy thoughts, thoughts of Christmas packages waiting under the little tree in my living room, thoughts of my friends, thoughts of Lori and the rest of her family, that I see the white envelope from Cattail Press in the handful of mail. One of my old TMNT pen pals works there now and suggested I submit some stuff, last fall.
I walk down the hall, ripping it open, curious.
No way... No WAY!!!
My submission's been accepted. I hold back for a second, decide to wake up the floor anyway.
"COWABUNGA!!!"
